Thermal 3D modeling system based on 3-view geometry

In this paper, we propose a novel thermal three-dimensional (3D) modeling system that includes 3D shape, visual, and thermal infrared information and solves a registration problem among these three types of information. The proposed system consists of a projector, a visual camera and, a thermal camera (PVT). To generate 3D shape information, we use a structured light technique, which consists of a visual camera and a projector. A thermal camera is added to the structured light system in order to provide thermal information. To solve the correspondence problem between the three sensors, we use three-view geometry. Finally, we obtain registered PVT data, which includes visual, thermal, and 3D shape information. Among various potential applications such as industrial measurements, biological experiments, military usage, and so on, we have adapted the proposed method to biometrics, particularly for face recognition. With the proposed method, we obtain multi-modal 3D face data that includes not only textural information but also data regarding head pose, 3D shape, and thermal information. Experimental results show that the performance of the proposed face recognition system is not limited by head pose variation which is a serious problem in face recognition.